Obsessed with digital culture: writing on film, TV, music, and the internet

LP

This article ties in to a podcast I recorded with Rhys from GLC, available here. I also previously interviewed his bandmate, Eggsy, which you can find here.

Last month, Goldie Lookin Chain released Fear of a Welsh Planet. It’s an album that continues their trend of hilarious, but relatable, hip-hop. To find out more on its creation, and the evolution of GLC across a lengthy career, I spoke to Rhys (also known as P. Xain). As the member responsible for almost all of the group’s music and production, he’s been deeply ingrained from their earliest beginnings.

Aside from Goldie Lookin Chain, Rhys has put out a number of intriguing solo releases.…
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March is an important contributor to Secret Cave. Our third season of podcasts, SCP3, currently features him as a regular cast member. However, he initially came into contact with us through his music. We used a bonus track from his previous album, THE RIDE, on our debut cassette tape. Despite being a mere fifteen years old, he has an impressive number of hip-hop explorations to his name. He’s a remarkably talented vocalist and producer for his age. This week, March released CRACKER LP. In time, we’ll be producing a full tape of this new collection of tracks for our upcoming store.…
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Majken‘s debut LP, Dancing Mountains, is a whimsical and nostalgic set of twelve autobiographical songs. The mood that the record conjures mirrors the main themes explored throughout; a trip back in time, reflecting on “vivid dreams, fond memories and restless nights”. What makes the collection even more special is the personal touch. The songs reference specific locations encountered, and people she’s crossed paths with.

Dancing Mountains could have been pulled straight out of the late 60’s, and early 70s, surf-pop and avant-garde movement. Trickles of The Velvet Underground are clearly present, uniquely intertwined with elements of Scandinavian pop.…
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Having spent over two decades with several bands including A Place to Bury Strangers, The D4 and The Scavengers, it’s surprising to realize Dion Lunadon hadn’t released a solo work sooner and, even more so, to learn it wasn’t planned to exist.

“I hadn’t written by myself for years and felt I needed to create something with no compromises and something that reflected who I am. Out of anything I’ve ever done, this record definitely captures that more than any other. I wasn’t planning on releasing any of it, which is a great place to write from. I wrote it for me.”

I bloody love the Pixies. They’ve been one of my favourite bands since I first heard Bone Machine; before my balls had even dropped. To this day I consider their performance at 2005’s Leeds/Reading festival my finest live event. To their hordes of vocal admirers, they carry around an enormous legacy everywhere they go. It’s probably this pressure that has kept their back catalogue compressed and minimal over the years. Indeed, even with their lengthy hiatus, you’d have expected more than six LPs from a band with the stature and history that the Pixies enjoy. For me, this has always given them a mystique that greatly adds to their presence.…
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Beyond the static-tined avalanche of white noise and synthesiser synaesthesia, Boards of Canada’s recent Tomorrow’s Harvest L.P. is a surprisingly comprehensive journey towards – and eventually away from – collapse. But what stands so intriguing in this breakdown? What leads the release of this record to captivate so easily with giddy addiction? And just what exactly is being portrayed across the ice-pines and bark-bergs of this somehow begotten, faintly belated landscape?

First, one has to be careful in attempting to view the effort as a concept album in the strictest terms. Despite its clear thematic loyalties (mostly to secret broadcast, ghostly premonitions and narcissistic evolution), there is no great or detailed tale to be found under the layers of softly structured tone poetry. …
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